This is my Dad's first tractor. He started farming on his own during the war borrowing his father's MH U frames as we lived next door. Then in 1948 he bought this petrol engined Ferguson TEA 20 serial no 39615 road registration number JTE 738 together with a plough, cultivator and three row ridger. I remember it arriving. It was supplied by Ferguson agents Hogarths who were located between Manchester and Liverpool.

This tractor did thousands of hours of work and must have had at least 6 sets of pistons and sleeves in its working life and associated head and crankshaft jobs. After 3-4 years Dad bought a conversion set to enable him to run it on paraffin. He also had a Howrd reduction gearbox fitted to allow the tractor to run slow enough for planting lettuce and the like.

At the end of it's working life it lay abandoned in the shed for many years. Finally I brought it back here and tarted up and it became my son's. We still have it and it's a nice runner.

We only have one distant shot of it at work on a foggy day with snow on the ground. Here is that shot with a blowup of it. It shows the "gang" off to cut a load of cabbage for Manchester wholesale market in about 1962 as far as I can recall. I took the shot on a day I was home from college. Dad's driver Jackie Eccleston put by far the greater number of hours in on this tractor, though I drove it whenever I could - and that was a lot!!! My Dad and George Kelly are on the trailer. Notice Dad had fitted a cab to the tractor for some protacetion ffor Jackie when he was ploughing in winter but in truth it was a rattling and drafty old thing!

Jackie came up to see his old tractor when we had straightened it up after its long layoff. He was entranced to get on and drive it again and has since bought one for his own use on his small holding